


Justice for Kuvira

by zhenyilani



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 03:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14741243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhenyilani/pseuds/zhenyilani
Summary: Sometimes one is a mere victim of circumstance.





	1. The Trial

Kuvira kneeled in her platinum cell constructed from pieces of metal salvaged from her own giant Mecha Tank. She looked up at her mother as she locked the cell from the outside. 

"What has become of my siblings? Keji, Hu-ni, Arely and Meng?" Kuvira asked with pleading eyes. 

Her mother just gazed down at her, her expression undreadable. "Keji works for Future Industries as an airship engineer. He is stationed at a manufacturing plant in the fire nation, so he was spared the danger of your weapon. Hu-ni was a fashion designer in Little Ba Sing Se's upper ring. Your weapon destroyed the city so he has no shop now. I have been training Arely and Meng. You were right when you ran away. They are both airbenders. After Harmonic Convergence, the White Lotus lifted the restraining order and allowed them to train with their father so long as their lineage remained confidential." her mother said solemnly. 

"What will my sentence be? Do you know?" Kuvira asked, with tears in her eyes. 

"I don't know," her mother said looking down on her with pity and grief. "There will be a trial."

* * *

Every world leader was in attendance. Fire Lord Izumi sat beside President Raiko, former Fire Lord Zuko in the front row of the courtroom. Chief Tonraq of the Southern Water Tribe sat next to his daughter, the Avatar Korra. On the other side of the Avatar sat her cousins, the CoChiefs of the Northern Water Tribe, twins Eska and Desna. Then Suyin who was named Interim President of the Earth Kingdom and tasked with creating Prince Wu's Republic almost immediately after Kuvira's Surrender. 

"Where is the Chief of Police, Lin Beifong?" Kuvira asked the two officers who flanked her on her way to her seat at one of the tables between the jury and judge, and the audience attending the hearing. 

"Her whereabouts are none of your business," one of the officers said pushing her roughly. 

The officers sat Kuvira down in the chair and chained her hands to the table and took their place by the door through which they came. 

"The defendants are accused with the following charges: coercion of governmental figures. Exploitation of the general public, money laundering, improper use of city, provincial, national funds, sabotage, and five accounts of emotional abuse to a minor under the age of sixteen..." the judge read from his piece of paper. 

Kuvira's gaze shot up. _I may have torn up a few villages, but I would never hurt children, not intentionally, not directly especially when I was hurt just the same, when I was eight..._

"How do you plead?" the judge asked. Kuvira looked up and opened her mouth to speak but noticed the judge was not looking at her. Instead, he was addressing the table across from her where four Grand Lotuses sat in chains. 

"Guilty of all charges," The grand Lotus member said hanging his head in shame. 

Kuvira's heart was racing as tears filled her eyes. She felt a callused, yet comforting hand touch her shoulder. She turned and looked up and saw her mother's brilliant jade green eyes looking down at her. "Go sit next to your father. This is my battle now." her mother said. Kuvira couldn't contain her sobs as everyone turned to her. Her mother banged a fist on the table and the platinum cuffs unlocked. 

"You can bend platinum?" Kuvira asked in astonishment. 

"No, but I can bend the locking mechanism in the tables and chairs. I am surprised you didn't notice them as soon as you sat down. I thought Su would have taught you better. But don't worry about that now. We will be together soon, and I will teach you," Her mother said. 

"Why..." Kuvira managed through sobs as she stood, still clad in her prison garb, her hair unkempt hanging carelessly from her face. "Why are you doing this?" 

"Because you are my daughter and you mean the world to me, to both me and your father. If we had stayed a family, maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't all be so broken. You wouldn't have run away. You wouldn't have felt the obligation to fight for a unified Earth Empire. Now go. Let me fight this battle." her mother explained kissing Kuvira on the head before nudging her towards the benches. 

A police officer swung the low wooden gate open for Kuvira to pass through. She walked past merchants, politicians, inventors, designers, civilians, the rest of Team Avatar, and finally reached the row she was looking for. There, sat her Beifong Cousins, her uncle Baatar, and her father, Councilman Tenzin. She slowly sunk down in the empty seat beside him, wanting nothing more than the ground to swallow her entire existence. 

The Councilman draped an arm around his eldest daughter as she reluctantly leaned against his body and cried for the remainder of the trial of the White Lotus Organization. She tried to cover her ears and her eyes and drown out all of the painful memories as her mother recounted their story for the world to hear.


	2. A Happy Family

Kuvira was chasing her older brother Keji, while their younger brother Hu-Ni sat nearby on a bench bent over a book about the Sun Warriors of Old. Even though Keji was older, Kuvira was the better bender of both her brothers. She was a prodigy and already starting to bend metal. Kuvira was gaining on her older brother as they tore up the walled courtyard with their bending. Kuvira almost had him in a corner and stopped running to raise a boulder.

"Got you!" She punched it and it hit him, knocking him over. Keji threw the rock off of himself and did a sweep kick, sliding the ground under his little sister, breaking her stance, knocking her onto her hip. "Hey!" she shrieked. Recovering quickly and doing a kip up to stand back on her feet. 

"Are you playing nicely or kicking each other's asses?" a stern and inquisitive voice asked behind Kuvira. 

"Mom!" Kuvira turned and hugged the woman in the metal uniform. 

"Mom!" Keji and Hu-Ni both ran over and jumped in on the hug. 

"You're home early!" Kuvira exclaimed with delight.

"Yes, I am! There is some business that needs tending to here. Where are your little sisters?" 

"Inside, with Dad," Keji replied. 

The four of them all walked into the house. 

"How are our little ones?" the police woman asked her husband kissing the arrow tattooed on his bald head. 

"Sleeping now," her husband replied. 

"Thank you for watching them," she said hanging her coat up on a rack in the hallway. 

"Will there be time for training today?!" Keji asked jumping up and down. 

"Yes, let me change out of my armor, and then we can get a good two hours in before I have to start dinner," the police woman said placing two hands on her eldest son's shoulders, stabilizing him before passing.

* * *

Nine-year-old Keji, eight-year-old Kuvira, and six-year-old Hu-Ni stood blindfolded, in a triangle around their mother as their father sat on the bench nearby, observing. 

"Breathe," their mother instructed standing in the middle of their triangle. The three stomped on the ground each raising a boulder the size of themselves. "and strike," she ordered. They all punched their boulders towards her as she simply vanished into the ground evading her. 

"Where did she go?" Kuvira thought feeling the ground moving subtly beneath her feet. She slid one foot to the side, then slid back. 

In a fleeting instant, her mother surfaced right behind her. "ROCK ON!" mother yelled shoving the girl onto her face from behind. Kuvira braced herself and rolled over, kicking one leg and both hips towards the sky, raising a column beneath her mother launching her into the sky. Her mother elegantly flipped twice before landing behind Keji who slid to the side and kicked a large rock at her. Their mother turned the ground beneath her feet into a wave and rode around him in a circle before moving away and out of his range. She glided around each of the children, bending rocks at them from all directions as they alternated between evading, blocking, and attacking. 

... 

"Honey, it is six pm!" their father called from the doorway. 

"Coming!" their mother replied. "Come along my little badgermoles," she said softly to her three eldest. 

Kuvira always helped her mother cook. She wanted to be just like her mother, so compassionate and kind, with a heart big enough to love and protect an entire city from various forces that seek to destroy their way of living. Tonight, they made a special water tribe sea prune stew. 

"You don't usually cook Water Tribe food. What is the occasion?" Kuvira asked her mother. 

"I got out of work early. You know how rare that is," her mother replied with a warm smile. 

They laughed. 

Dinner was a lighthearted affair. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Mother fed their littlest sibling, one-year-old Jiejie and Father fed three year old Arely. Kuvira laughed as Arely threw up on her father. He just blew it off his robes and into a spare bowl with his airbending as Arely cried. 

"Ku-vi! Think fast!" Keji said sliding his chair back, banging on the wooden table to lift the clay plate before punching it as his sister across the table. She almost missed it, but her mother's bending caught the plate first. 

"No bending at the table! You're going to make a mess!" their mother scolded wiping stew drippings off of baby Jie jie's face. 

"But Dad airbent at the table!" Keji replied. 

"Your father is also a master of his element with superior control than all of you!" 

"But--"

"Don't argue with your mother, Keji!" their father scolded. 

"Ha ha!" Kuvira taunted him. 

He slid his foot on the ground slamming her face into her own stew. 

"That's it!" their mother stood up with one-year-old Meng on her hip and caught both children with a cable. "To bed, both of you, clearly you are done eating and just want to play! Well you can play tomorrow, go bathe and get ready for bed." 

"But Maaa!! I thought you said a healthy layer of dirt is good for a young earthbender!" Keji replied with a smirk as Kuvira made no attempt to contain her laughter. 

"Just- go!" their mother said rubbing her head with one hand since the other was occupied holding a one-year-old baby girl. 

"I swear, Keji is like a combination of the original Bumi, and your mother but with my father's childish energy," their father said. 

"And Kuvira just feeds off of his antics," 

"I don't know. I think she instigates most of it. She's always the first to begin their little sparring matches in the yard. She's the leader." 

"I am so glad you're a normal earthbender," their mother said to Hu-Ni.

* * *

"Are you in bed yet?" Kuvira's mother asked coming in to check on the eight year old girl. She jumped in and threw the sheets over head, holding them up to her neck. 

"Now I am!" She said excitedly. 

"How was your day today? Did you enjoy training and dinner?" 

"Yes, I miss training with you. And I always love it when you make water tribe food!" 

"I'm glad," her mother said putting a hand on hers. 

"I can't wait for Arely or Meng's hair to be long enough to braid!" Kuvira exclaimed. 

"Why?!" 

"So I can experiment with them. Great Aunt Ty Lee taught me all these hairstyles she used to make when she traveled with the circus, and Grandma Katara taught me how to do the hair loopies and how to put beads in and make them stay! Arely and Meng can be my dress up dolls, and since I am so much older, they won't be able to escape!" Kuvira said enthusiastically waving her arms through the air. 

Her mother chuckled. "You care too much about appearances." she sighed. 

"At least my aspiration isn't to be a hair stylist!" Kuvira said jabbing at her little brother Hu-ni who shaved half of his head and dyed streaks in the remaining half. Father had been so against it, but since nobody knew the kids existed, and they never left the house, he let it slide. 

"Now, now, everyone is different. No need to poke fun of your brother. But you are my daughter and you will be the greatest earth bender in the world!... After I am gone of course." 

Kuvira sat up and punched her mother in the arm as a sign of affection. Her mother tickled her. Kuvira screamed and laughed. "No fair! You're bigger and stronger than me!" 

"Then I guess, you have to train harder, become stronger, and beat me!" her mother replied. They both laughed as her mother laid down beside her on the covers and kissed her head. 

"I love you, Kuvira." her mother whispered in her ear. 

Kuvira sighed with a childish annoyance. "I knooooow! You tell me every day!" she replied.


	3. The White Lotus

Kuvira's father knocked on the door. "My love, they're here," he said to her mother. "Goodnight, Kuvira," 

"Goodnight, Dad! Night Mom!" Kuvira said lifting the blankets over her face. 

"Sleep, my little badgermole. Sleep so you have energy for tomorrow's training," her mother said kissing her head with a tenderness nobody but kuvira knew she had.

"Yes, mommy," Kuvira said closing her eyes. As soon as their steps retreated down the stairs, she began to plot her escape to sneak down after them. She practiced being calm and meditating like her dad did so often to slow her heartbeat and try to become undetectable by her mother's seismic sense. It was so rare for anybody to visit their home and even rarer for them to come at night. Maybe they're the reason her mother came home early. 

Kuvira slipped out of bed and slipped down the stairs to try to get a glimpse of what was happening. 

"As you both know, Avatar Aang's days are numbered," the voice of an old man said slowly. Kuvira used seismic sense to see them around the corner. Her mother's feet were up on the living room table, no wonder Kuvira got so far without being caught. Her father had his arm draped over the couch behind her head. 

"I know," her mother replied angrily. "You remind us every day." 

"And thus far, you have failed to produce any airbenders," the grand lotus said to Kuvira's mother mostly. 

"You think I can control that?" she asked, with hurt in her voice as she fought back tears of anger and rage. 

"We know you can't which is why we think it would be in the best interests of the world, if you stepped aside," the grand lotus members said. 

"Arely and Meng could be airbenders!" Kuvira's mother said. "they're just still so young! Keji didn't start bending until he was four! We just need more time!" 

"The numbers are stacked against you, Ma'am. We have already given you numerous extensions and cannot wait any longer for you to assess your youngest children while there are many non-bending females on this island willing and ready to serve the world and produce airbenders," 

"Please," Kuvira's mother begged, as a tear escaped the corner of her eye. "Just one more year," 

"I am sorry, but our decision is final." The Grand Lotus member informed the couple. 

"We recommend you leave tonight with the children so no one sees," a second grand lotus added. 

"The children are all in bed," Kuvira's father argued. "At least give them until morning to rest." 

"And say goodbye to their father," Kuvira's mother added. 

"If you leave now, you can spare yourselves from having to provide an explanation. Tell them their father was lost in a fire and you could only get them out." the white lotus said. 

"Why would I lie to them?" Kuvira's mother asked. 

"To protect them and their father from the harsh reality that we must face now." 

Kuvira's mother's usual composure flipped to anger and rage as the house began to shake. "You're all horrible bastards. We have spent our entire lives together, on Air Temple Island. I was born here, all my children were born here! Air Temple Island is my home! Arely and Meng could be airbendrs. You can wait!" 

"My love," Father said placing a hand on her shoulder, calming her instantly. Kuvira could tell her mother, now standing knew she was there, and that baby Arely had begun to cry upstairs. She turned with one deathly glare at the grand lotus members before heading towards the stairway where she snatched Kuvira by the shoulder and dragged her back to her room before going to comfort Arely. "Go to sleep, I won't tell you again!" Her mother said angrily. As soon as her mother reached Arely's room, Kuvira bolted from her bed, flying down the stairs, past her father and out the front door and across their large courtyard towards the wall that marked the borders of their world. 

"Kuvira!" her father called trying to use air to catch her waist and drag her back, but she erected a wall behind her as she ran, cutting off the current. 

"You bastards!" She yelled raising a rock wall to cover the gate in their courtyard border, preventing them from leaving. She stomped her foot erecting four boulders each six times the weight of the four white lotus members that came to her house that night. "How dare you tell my mother to step aside!" She yelled lifting it above their heads in her childish tantrum. "How dare you tell us to leave!" 

"In a few days time, your father will be the LAST airbender on the planet. The last living member of an entire race. We don't need any more earthbenders in the world. We don't need you. Your parents understand the gravity of this situation. You are only wasting your energy trying to change what you cannot control," the old man said bravely. Kuvira lifted the boulders higher with her shaking noodle arms, knowing the higher they fell the bigger splat would be made of the bodies below. 

"Kuvira!" her mother called running out across the courtyard. Kuvira nearly dropped the boulders, but her mother effortlessly tossed them aside and grabbed her exhausted child as she fell to the ground. 

"If this girl of yours continues to be a problem after your relocation, we will have to intervene, and potentially exile her from the city," the White Lotus said to her mother. 

"My love, listen to me!" Kuvira's mother began. 

"How could you let them do that? Stomp all over you?! How can you let them send us away just so dad can try to make airbender babies with someone else? What is he? A printing press? A machine? I thought we were a family! I thought we were supposed to stick together and protect each other! And now we have to leave?" Kuvira cried. 

"Kuvira," her mother began, trying to think of an explanation the child would understand. 

"We warned you," the grand lotus said. "You should have taken them away while they were asleep. Then you wouldn't have to explain."

"Kuvira," her father began. His tone was different from what she was used to. He sounded like he did when he rehearsed for diplomatic speeches and addresses to the council. "You are being selfish." He said. Kuvira's jaw dropped. She was shocked. Her mother had always been the disciplinarian, the one telling her to be tough like the earth she bent. Her father had always been her shoulder to cry on. "We must consider the fate of an entire race. It takes for nations to maintain balance in our world, and I can't let that fourth nation die with me. You must understand, the world is more important than this family." her father said. 

Kuvira's lip quivered, her body shook with disbelief, hate, anger, and pain. How could her sweet-tempered, loving, compassionate father ever say such a thing?


	4. Turning

The next day, Kuvira's mother called in sick and stayed home from work. She prepared seaweed noodles for the children's breakfast. Kuvira was still angry from the previous night as she came down the stairs to find her siblings all seated at the dining room table. They seemed oblivious to all that transpired only a few hours prior. Kuvira looked at her mother, who was really the only one who could control the young earthbender and prevent her from destroying the entire island. 

Father was gone for the day, most likely to attend city council business while Mother stayed. The morning was quiet. Keji sensed something was wrong by the way Kuvira didn't tease like she usually did first thing every day. Mother worked on their metalbending for about an hour while three year old Arely offered various toys and blankets to baby Meng in the corner of the room and Hu-ni twiddled with his hair. After training, Keji continued to practice while Kuvira tunneled out of their property to go down to the beach to sulk in solitude. While Father never let her out of his sight, Mother didn't mind because she cold always locate Kuvira instantly with seismic sense. 

"Hey kiddo," Kuvira's mother said appearing beside her on the soft sand of the private beach, wearing a green skirt, tan tunic, brown belt, and her meteor bracelet on her upper arm. Kuvira took off her matching bracelet and looked at it, turning it over in her small hands. "How are you feeling?"

"The same as last night, angry." Kuvira replied. 

"I am so sorry," her mother said, choking back tears. 

"How can you let yourself be be so controlled? I've heard Aunt Kya and Uncle Bumi's stories about how you did whatever you wanted. Even Grandma Toph couldn't stop you from getting locked up in jail that one time you replaced her face on her honorary statue with yours when you were thirteen years old! And now you let some old men in fancy robes tell you your 'services' weren't good enough and is time for you to leave? This was your home long before the White Lotus became 'glorified bodyguards' of Grandpa Ang and his air nation. Grandma Katara told us how you lived here full time because Grandma Toph didn't want you to be kidnapped for leverage as a babe!" 

"Kuvira, my love. Times change, and people change. As you get older, you learn you have responsibilities not just to yourself but the world. Your life no longer becomes your own," her mother said. 

"So what? You belong to the White Lotus now? You're just a puppet dancing on strings?" 

"No. I belong to you. You and your siblings I will do anything for you to be safe and happy. We don't need your father to live. We have money, we have power. I could take leave from my work and we can travel alone." 

"But it is not the same. We won't have HIM!" Kuvira replied. "It's like all this time we meant nothing to him. Like we mean nothing to him. They said we wouldn't even be allowed to visit once we leave!" 

"They want to protect his new family from the pain--"

"What of our pain? What happened to our protection? And you speak as if this new family has already been made! It is so unfair!" 

"I know, I know. But life is hard that way. We don't always get what we want. Sometimes we just have to take the circumstances we are in and accept it and do the best we can with what we have." As they made their way back to the house, Kuvira stopped at the gates to admire the mural her mother had made when she first built this house. 

Father was off on a four year journey to all of the air temples with Grandpa Aang while Mother was here rising in the ranks of the city police. On her one month vacation each year, she too traveled the world learning about all four nations and collecting stones for this mosaic mural here. On one side of the gate were a bunch of sky bisons flying among the clouds and on the other side of the gate, a bunch of badgermoles were peeking blindly out of the caves they were digging. The stones came from volcanic islands in the fire nations and rocks beneath glaciers in the north and south poles. Mother spent so much time finding just the right colored rocks with which to decorate her forever home with the mosaic to honor the union between the earth and air. And it was all crumbling to pieces because the White Lotus couldn't wait for more airbenders. Above the gate hung a heavy piece of wood with her mother's family seal carved into it and painted with gold: the flying boar of the Beifong Family.

She didn't need to look to see her father moving to stand beside her. Her seismic sense was already advanced for an eight year old. "When will they make us leave?" Kuvira asked as they crossed the threshold into their prison courtyard.

"I convinced them to give us a week," her father replied. 

"Why don't we leave now?" Kuvira asked, not wanting to take another step further into the house she thought would be her forever home. "Why drag out this torture when you can just tear us off your shoulders like a soiled bandage? Why not just shock us all instead of prolonging this pain?" Kuvira asked stopping before reaching the door with tears streaming down her face. 

"When will you stop being so selfish, Kuvira?" Her father yelled angrily instead of attempting to assuage her grief. "The world is bigger than just our family!" 

"Our family? You really think you can call us a family after all you have done? Or should I say, after all that you _haven't_ done?" Kuvira shook her head and backed away from him, moving towards the gates of the courtyard. 

"Where do you think you're going?" her father asked.

"Away from here! It is what you want isn't it? For all of us to be gone? We are nothing to you!" Kuvira spat. 

Her father moved towards her but she bent a hole in the earth and disappeared below the surface. Her father ran inside to her mother.

"You find her! You bring her back now!" He yelled.

"Shut up before you upset the other children! Just give her time. She's right. We don't mean anything to you do we? We were just used." Kuvira's mother set down the spoon in the pot she was stirring and lifted her hands to her neck and untied her betrothal necklace and handed it to him. "Excuse me while I go get _my_ children." 

Kuvira watched from the beaches as her mother loaded Keji, Hu-ni, Arely, and Meng onto the ferry before completely burying their beautiful home with her earthbending, courtyard, wall, mosaic and all. She watched as her mother speared her father's bed in his old childhood house, and then completely collapse the White Lotus's Headquarters building. 

Kuvira watched her mother sail away across the bay only to return a few hours later in search of her oldest little girl. 

"Kuvira, Please! I know it is hard to process, but don't blame your father for this. There is a lot of pressure on all of us-" 

"I don't blame him entirely. You're at fault too. You gambled our lives away when you first agreed to this arrangement. You took took the risk with the slim chance that you would be able to spend your life with the man you loved. But life isn't fair, and now nobody can be happy," Kuvira said, her eyes narrowing as she turned on her mother, betrayal surging through her body.

"Kuvira, please listen to me," 

"No, I am through listening, to you. It is not like my words ever mattered to anybody. Why should yours matter to me?" Kuvira asked disappearing beneath the bay. She tunneled to the mainland, snuck onto a train to the middle of nowhere, then rode south with a caravan of farmers with no particular destination in mind. 


	5. The Metal Clan

"Hi, is this Suyin Beifong?" Kuvira's mother asked over the telephone.

"Speaking," 

"I know we haven't spoken in a while,"

"Pfft, a while? More like seven years," 

"Look, I didn't call to fight," 

"Then why did you call? And can you make it quick? I am kind of in the middle of something." 

"I know We are not on the best of terms, but my eldest daughter, Kuvira ran away last night and both Mom and Kuvira told me not to go after her. I was just wondering if you can keep an eye out for her. She is uner the impression that we don't love her anymore because she is not an airbender." 

"That is ridiculous!" Suyin said with a bit more sympathy in her voice. 

"The White Lotus has officially driven us out. They're not even waiting to find out if Arely or Jiejie can bend." 

Suyin sighed. "Hm. I'll send out some scouts to search the area from the swamps to Omashu." 

"Thank you," 

"Hey, Sis?" 

"Yeah?" 

"I am sorry," 

"For what?" 

"Everything."

* * *

The grass grew taller than Kuvira in these plains. She kept her eyes closed using only her feet to see if any wild animals were lurking in the brush. Sight was so often deceiving. She sensed a wild hyena-lion neareby preparing to pounce. She blocked it mid jump with an air wall, causing it to bump its head before running away, startled. She was hungry and small. Her skinny arms folded across her chest in a futile attempt to keep herself warm in the chilly evening winds of the plains. Her feet were bloodied and hurting after five days of travel and no time to heal or build a callus. Her knees felt weak. 

"Hey, sweetie, what is your name?" a voice asked above Kuvira. 

Kuvira looked up to see who was speaking. Was it a spirit she saw in the sunset of the evening? No, it was a woman hanging by a cable from an airship above. No wonder Kuvira didn't sense her presence with her feet. She was hanging. The woman let go of the cable and landed on the ground. She seemed like a human, but Kuvira couldn't tell anymore. 

"I'm Ku-vi-" She choked, her throat dry and dehydrated, and probably lined with sand by this point. "Kuvira," She said quietly. 

"How old are you?" the lady asked bending down, putting her large, grown-up hands on her arms. 

"I am eight years old." 

"Where are your parents?" the woman asked with genuine concern, tucking a lock of hair behind the weary girl's ear revealing just how much dirt was on her face. 

"What does it matter? They just cast me aside like I meant nothing to them. They didn't need another earthbender," Kuvira said finally giving in to her week knees, crouching in the tall grass, holding her twisted, empty stomach, covering her shivering arms with her hands. 

"I am sure that is not true," the woman said with a soothing, gentle voice as she knelt before the child. 

"It is! They just stood by while a bunch of old men in fancy robes decided the fate of our entire family."

"I am sure you meant the world to them"

"They told me but didn't mean it. My own father was all too ready to kick us all out to make space for a new wife, because my mother couldn't give him what he needed. It didn't matter what we children thought. Neither of them even told my siblings. I only found out because I snuck out of bed and listened. It is like everything they said and did, _for years_ , all the declarations of love, all of the hugs, all the training, were empty. Now I am not sure what is real anymore, and I just feel, angry!" 

"Well, I know what's real," the lady said placing one hand on Kuvira's wrist and one hand on the back of her neck, looking the child directly in the eyes. "I am real. You are real. Your feelings are real, and this canteen of water and piece of bread is real," the lady said pulling out a canteen of water and a piece of baguette. "Drink, eat. It looks like you haven't in a few days. Come with me. We will get you a bath and some new clothes. I am going to take you to my home in a city called Zaofu, home of the metal clan. There almost everybody is an earth and metalbender. You will never feel unwanted. There, you can join my family, okay?" 

"Okay," Kuvira said trying to stand again, but collapsing under her own weight. Kuvira lifted the child into her arms, seeing her bloodied feet, feeling her shiver in her arms as they began the walk out of the plains to the metal city.


	6. The Fate of the World

Sixteen years passed before Kuvira came face to face with her father again. She was captain of the guard in Zaofu, reluctant to join any family completely, too wary of being hurt again, too afraid, too broken to let anybody in. 

She stood by while Councilman Tenzin sat on one couch, and President Raiko of Republic City sat in the other. The Earth Queen had been brutally murdered by anarchists, and chaos reigned everywhere except Zaofu. 

"The Earth Kingdom is in ruin," Tenzin said to Suyin. 

"And you think I should be the one to fix it?" Suyin clarified. 

"Yes," Raiko answered. 

"I will not. I cannot. I will not impose my ideals on such a diverse and vast nation." 

"Suyin, please, you have done wonders for the citizens of Zaofu-" Tenzin began to say. 

_I wonder if he does not recognize me in this uniform, after so many years. But I will never forget his face._

"Su, if I may speak, I really think you should accept this position," Kuvira interrupted. 

"The people of Ba Sing Se will just see me as a conqueror seizing power for myself. It will just incite war." Suyin replied. 

"There are already wars!" Kuvira replied. "But we can change that and create order, and share our wealth and technology with the rest of the world, to help-" Kuvira began. 

"No, Kuvira. My decision is final." Suyin said. She turned back to Tenzin and Raiko. "I cannot help you, I'm sorry." 

For a moment, Kuvira and Tenzin locked eyes, but it was to late to make salvage what had been lost in the past. Both were beyond the point of no return.

Kuvira let out a disappointed sigh as memories of a different time surfaced in her mind. The White Lotus refusing to give her mother more time.

* * *

"What do you think you're doing?" Suyin demanded as Kuvira prepared several airships to leave fro Ba Sing Se." 

"Doing what you don't have the guts to do," Kuvira replied bravely. 

"Kuvira, this is madness! You'll be betraying Zaofu! Betraying your _family_!" 

"My own father once told me, 'the world is more important than this family'. I have to go. I cannot let the world cast aside my nation. For balance, all four must survive." Kuvira replied standing. She was taller than Suyin now. Taller, stronger, younger, and so full of life. 

"If you leave, you will never be able to return!" Suyin threatened. 

"When I return to Zaofu, it will be on my own terms," Kuvira said walking away steadily.

* * *

"I am sorry, Lin," Tenzin said draping an arm over her as they sat alone in her office after a grueling meeting with President Raiko. 

"You could have saved her! You could have fought the white lotus! But you stayed silent! You stayed Silent and now our daughter is mowing over the earth kingdom like a Future Industries BULLDOZER! If you had just fought for a few short years, Arely and Jiejie could airbend freely and not have to hide who they are because they're mine!" Lin yelled throwing Tenzin against the wall of her office before storming out of her office to go home and cry, and hide her miserable reality from the world. 

Tenzin rubbed his temples and exhaled.


	7. Road to Recovery

After the trial ended, the White Lotus was disbanded permanently and its members stripped of their authority in the United Republic, the Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Water Tribes. 

"What is going to happen now that Father has other children?" Kuvira asked sitting with Lin in their temporary room at Air Temple Island. 

"Nothing. Life goes on. He will continue to raise them and train them, Arely, Meng, and the other airbenders, and I will have you and Keji and Hu-Ni. I am thinking of retiring from the Police Force next year. I want to take you all traveling. Arely and Jiejie need to see the Air Temples, Suyin and I have agreed to build the Northern one that Zaheer destroyed, and I miss having time to go to the Fire Nation," Lin replied. 

"Did you travel often before we were born?" 

"Well, I had a month a year. I went to the Fire Nation for at least five days each vacation and spent time with Fire Lord Zuko and then- Princess Izumi. I learned sand bending and crossed the Se Wong desert on foot once. I learned to play the sungi horn and the lute. I went to Ba Sing Se and lived in luxury for about half a day before growing bored. Then I went to Gaoling only to find that Su had never made it there and was already married and starting to build Zaofu with Baatar." 

"Won't people hate me wherever we go, when we go?" 

"No. They won't hate you, they will feel sorry for you." 

"But I am a Beifong. I don't want or need their pity." 

"You have been pardoned, Kuvi. You and Baatar Jr. both were just victims of circumstance. It was a domino effect. I failed to protect you from the White Lotus. I wounded your heart and your head. The wound became infected. It festered and spread. You had good intentions, and the world will understand. The only person that continues to fear you, is you. Be brave my little badgermole, be brave, my flying boar."


End file.
